ACDSee Free

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Editors' Review

ACDSee Free is an image viewer that provides quick access to all of your pictures in just about any way you can imagine. Zoom in and out easily, rotate images, or scroll through them with your keyboard controls or mouse. This app also facilitates the printing of images or of setting one as your desktop screen.

The first time you open ACDSee Free, you will have to set up an account and verify your e-mail address. Once you've done this, you're ready to view your pictures. Just drag and drop them in or open them from the file menu. Double-clicking on the image you're viewing will make the viewing window full-screen. You can also rotate your image or zoom in or out with the buttons at the top of the screen, mouse controls, or shortcut keys. When you want to set an image as your desktop background, you can select either a centered, tiled, or stretched configuration. To print an image, select print from the File menu and you're ready to go.

Scrolling through your images with your mouse wheel is convenient, but it can be a little too sensitive, causing you to skip over many pictures without even realizing it. Overall, though, the interface and features of this app are exactly what they're designed to be. Namely, they let you view, organize, and print your pictures quickly and efficiently. There's not much that sets this app apart from other image viewers, but it gets the job done.

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Publisher's Description

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From ACD Systems:
ACDSee Free Photo Viewing. The wait is over. ACDSee Free is a blazing fast image viewer for your PC that shows off your photos, fast. Scroll through your images, zoom in and out, and print with ease. Simple. Nimble. Fast. Put ACDSee's legendary viewing speed to work for your photos. From JPEG to BMP, ACDSee Free will display your photos fast. View your images without any delay or waiting. Free delivers a bunch. View over 11 different types of files: BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TGA, TIFF, WBMP, PCX, PIC, WMF, EMF. Power-packed. Clutter-free. Simply double-click on a photo to view it at full-screen. Quickly scroll through all your photos in that folder with your mouse or keyboard. Rotate your photos, copy, or save them to a different spot. Plus you can easily set a favorite shot as your desktop wallpaper Get a little closer, faster ACDSee Free automatically displays your photo at the best size that can fit on your screen, so you can marvel instantly. Want to dig into the details? A variety of zoom options allow you to quickly see your photos at the level you need. Need more speed? Save even more time using a host of keyboard shortcuts in ACDSee Free. Seatbelts recommended Fit to print? Print your photos your way. Choose the format, print multiple copies, and change the orientation. Also print your photos with headers, footers, and captions. ACDSee Free dynamically previews your image as you set your options, so you'll know exactly how it will print.

This software is less than a watered-down version of the real ACDSee: it's just a mere image viewer, to look through your pictures and print the occasional one. It offers NOTHING that IRFANVIEW can't do. Irfanview is also free, is a portable app (doesn't touch your registry), and is even more compact and faster.

Cons

AdwareSpywareUnauthorized programs installation...and there's no way around it.

Even if you do custom install to un-check the toolbar and spyware installation, it eventually updates itself and installs a whole bunch of junk onto your computer. Taking that off requires more than just the standard windows control panel uninstaller. What's more, the games console that it installs, loads into memory, and can't even be terminated - it just stays loaded in the taskbar, even after you terminate the whole process tree.

Summary

We have enough problems as it is, with windows malfunctioning, even without spyware and adware running in the background. This has got to be the most frustrating install I've ever experienced. Save yourself the trouble: get IRFANVIEW isntead.

OK, there are plenty of people that will tell you how great ACDSee is. I'm here to tell you how to keep ADWARE off of your computer. This package installs an adware toolbar, and other adware. Do NOT let them intimidate you by the statement: "Custom install: for advanced users only"! The options are simple: 1. Custom install2. uncheck items (install toolbar, change my homepage)3. press NextWhile installing, my Firefox (portable) browser crashed(despite me having unchecked the option to install toolbar) - no big deal, I just restarted it after. Also, my Zone-Alarm detected an ADWARE during installation\Program Files (x86)\PricePeep\pricepeep.dllwhich it removed. Not sire if it was from ACDSee or from the CNET Installer - it was detected and removed while it was still installing, so I'm highly suspicious of CNET rather than acdsee.

Cons

Well, it's the fact that you have to choose custom install if you don't want the tenth toolbar installed and messing up your browser!!!

Summary

Always make sure that you have a good firewall, up to date antivirus and spyware remover. I highly recommend ZoneAlarm - it's a no-brainer, as it's all of these tools rolled into one, it works seamlessly, and definitely one of the better free security programs. It helped remove an adware program that was transferred onto my computer in an under-handed way during install. By all means, try it out. But they have also just released ACDSee 16, which does lots more than this little free utility.

For more information on ACDSee, read the other reviews - there will be plenty of them, as I've heard nothing but good about this program... and this, for a long time (as in over a decade).

After writing this, I ran this program, and it offered to UPDATE it.Was I ever sorry that I did this! It re-installed PricePeeper.DLL, added pricepeeper.exe, installed a whole bunch of games and ADWARE and SPYWARE.It was a MAJOR undertaking to remove it all!I needed: Uninstaller Pro, as well as CCleanerAfter reading a review of ACDSee16 on a photography website, I actually wanted to buy the full program. But I am so pissed off that I will not buy it.I'm removing this program.I used IRFANVIEW up until now, and will revert back to it. It is a no-fuss, lightlning fast image viewer that does EVERYTHING acdsee free does, it's only 1MB in size and installs NO adware, NO spyware - it's even a portable app, not touching your registry.

IMPORTANT READ! After writing this, I ran this program, and it offered to UPDATE it. Was I ever sorry that I did this! It re-installed PricePeeper.DLL, added pricepeeper.exe, installed a whole bunch of games and ADWARE and SPYWARE. It was a MAJOR undertaking to remove it all! I needed: Uninstaller Pro, as well as CCleanerAfter reading a review of ACDSee16 on a photography website, I actually wanted to buy the full program. But I am so pissed off that I will not buy it. I'm removing this program. I used IRFANVIEW up until now, and will revert back to it. It is a no-fuss, lightlning fast image viewer that does EVERYTHING acdsee free does, it's only 1MB in size and installs NO adware, NO spyware - it's even a portable app, not touching your registry.

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